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My friend, former Detroit Free Press movie critic Terry Lawson, said it best when wrote this about Michael Moore:

His blue collar bonhomie is bunk.

That’s the flabulous filmmaker in a nutshell. And Terry Lawson is a liberal, normally inclined to side with Moore’s polemics.

To say that Michael Moore is intellectually dishonest wouldn’t be correct. It’s not intellectual. He’s just plain, flat out dishonest. And hypocritical.

And “Capitalism: A Love Story,” his latest fake-umentary, is more like Hypocrisy: A Love Story. The lovers: Michael Moore and . . . himself.

That’s unless you count actor Wally Shawn, America’s new “economic scholar” . . . and a character actor who played a teacher in “Clueless,” a title more appropriate for this flick. Shawn is suddenly an econ expert “because he’s read and studied politics and economics.” Big Deal. Shawn tells us that the problem with capitalism is

You have one guy who makes ice cream and nobody likes his, so they don’t buy it, and he goes out of business. You have another guy, and everybody likes his ice cream, so he succeeds.

And this is a problem because . . .? Capitalism . . . it’s bad because bad ice cream makers go out of business.

There isn’t a shred of honesty in this movie after that dumb “economics” lesson in “Duh!” Much of this “love story” is the same old retreads you’ve heard before, including from Moore. Barack Obama is a and the “hero.” Children are shown saluting capitalism in classrooms like a Hitler salute. Moore trots out Abu Ghraib and Gitmo scenes and calls America a human rights abuser (yup, for America, Michael Moore has no “love” story–it’s pure hate-America baloney). Capitalism, Ronald Reagan, Republicans and corporations–not the weather–are responsible for Hurricane Katrina, people losing their homes across America, and the end of America’s middle class. Americans need socialized medicine. General Motors is “bad” and still won’t give Michael Moore the interview they actually gave him while he made “Roger and Me.” And America needs workers to own and run companies . . . except Michael Moore’s filmmaking company. That needs to be majority owned by its creator.

Not only are Reagan, Republicans, and businesses responsible for all of America’s ills, but these corporations want to murder their employees. That’s what Moore implies when he “explores” “dead peasants policies,” the derogatory term used by trial lawyers and lefties to describe life insurance policies that companies take out on their employees to recoup some of the costs of hiring and training a new employee and losing an already-trained one. Companies, in Moore’s view, are murderers who want to see their employees die so they can collect death benefits. And to make the point of how evil this is, he shows us a shot of George W. Bush on a commemorative plate in the home of a widow of a bank employee. Aha! Bush did it! I knew it!

Moore also tells us that the reason planes crash is that pilots aren’t paid enough. So it’s ironic that he uses testimony of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to bolster his argument, since birds were the reason his plane sank. Moore tells us that pilots have to work multiple jobs and go on food stamps to survive. That’s tragic. But it isn’t–as Moore claims–the reason pilots crash. It’s ironic, too, that a recent report just came out this week showing that a number of pilots engage in a good deal of chatter and other improper behavior at critical points in flights when they’re supposed to be paying attention. That’s not in Michael’s “Love Story.” But love means never having to say you’re sorry . . . or you’re wrong.

At the beginning of his cinematic screed, Moore laments the disappearance of the Fifties way of life in America, “when families could live on one income.” But later on, he decries Ronald Reagan’s opposition to feminism and the ERA–the Equal Rights Amendment. It’s lost on him that feminism implored women to go out and work to “prove their equality and worth,” and the economy adjusted to the dual income household. Yes, Moore’s cherished feminism and “equal rights” movement are the reason families need two incomes to survive today.

Moore claims that capitalism is behind a dishonest judge who took bribes and kickbacks from a company running a privatized youth detention center in Pennsylvania and unfairly sent kids there for long sentences for no reason. Yeah, because in state-run systems and Communist countries, there’s never bribery or corrupt officials, or cronyism. Riiiight.

Moore says capitalism destroyed Detroit’s neighborhoods. Actually, it’s the exact opposite, far-left Black Panthers and their riots forty-odd years ago, as well as third-world anti-capitalist “leadership” and policies destroyed Detroit’s neighborhoods. But why tell the truth, when it doesn’t fit your agenda? Like Moore, Detroit Mayors like Coleman Young and its whacked out City Council are capitalists for themselves and communists for every business and job of the many that they’ve driven out of the city. Moore also glorifies squatting, which certainly hasn’t helped any neighborhood, in Detroit or otherwise. How would Michael Moore like it if I broke into his Torch Lake mansion just because I felt like living there? He seems to like it when people do that to a bank’s property.

Then, there’s Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and sundry other left-wing Catholic clerics, telling us that Jesus was against capitalism. Perhaps, but since I’m a Jew and don’t believe in him, why should I care? And why should I care what Gumbleton says? For decades, he’s been a vehement leader of the far-left liberation theology movement and a long-time communist who supported Daniel Ortega, the P.L.O., and every other enemy of the West. Of course, a commie is gonna hate capitalism. Einstein stuff, Michael Moore.

Since the movie was made, Moore has now told the world that Islam and Judaism are against capitalism, too. I can’t speak for my friends in the “Religion of Peace” whose financiers are the biggest capitalists in the black gold market. But I can tell Rabbi Moore that my religion is very capitalist. In fact, Judaism believes in a flat ten percent tax and our prayers include beseeching G-d to help us make a good living. There’s nothing about building a business and handing it over to the workers. Not in my Torah.

And Moore’s graphs and charts are dishonest, too. He shows pictures of Ronald Reagan on repeated graphs all purporting to show that bankrupcties, incarcerations, sales of anti-depressants, unemployment, downsizing, lowering of wages, and other economic maladies all went up. And his narration blames Reagan for them. Problem is–while he shows a big picture of Ronald Reagan smiling at the point of escalation of these problems–the point of escalation is 1990. Who was President then? Was it Ronald Reagan or was it a liberal Republican who asked us to read his lips, no new taxes, and then raised taxes? And who was President for eight of the next ten years of the chart where all of these problems keep going up geometrically? Here’s a hint: his initials are Bill Clinton.

But Clinton gets away unscathed in this movie, as does Barack Obama. He’s Moore’s hero and the movie’s. While Moore is upset that a guy name Timothy Geithner and others bailed out the banks, he fails to note who appointed them and for whom they work. Gee, I think it’s a President whose initials stand for Body Odor and whose economic policies are even more malodorous.

But most people watching this movie are dummies, or they’re Michael Moore’s amen crowd. But then I repeat myself. They’re not going to look at those graphs and charts and point this out to themselves or their groupthink fellow useful idiots.

The Hackers, an older couple, whom Moore shows throughout the movie getting evicted from their family farm, are a tragic story. You can’t have a heart and not feel for these desperate people. I felt for them, and it was difficult to watch them lose everything. But they apparently took out an ARM–Adjustable Rate Mortage–on their farm, something barely mentioned. And unlike this very sympathetic couple on hard times, Moore shows none of the subprime mortgage takers who never should have bought a home and did so carelessly, knowing they had no money to pay for it. Nor does he show those who bought homes they couldn’t afford, whether for investment properties, vacation homes, or just because they wanted to keep up with the Joneses.

And finally, there’s the company in Madison, Wisconsin that Moore portrays as paradise on earth. Employees own the company and decide what wages are paid and everyone owns everything. He compares it to his other paradise: Europe, where unions often have seats on company boards and help run the show. The problem is Michael Moore hasn’t taken steps to do that himself. He owns his company and he and his wife don’t equally divide the profits and wages among his workers. In fact, ex-employees of Moore’s have repeatedly claimed he did not pay them overtime, minimum wage, or benefits, and abused his position as an employer. So much for paradise when you force other bosses to create it while you lounge around and mouth off about their ethics. Do Michael Moore’s Best Boys and Key Grips get to vote on how his profits are spent? Do they make what he’s making on “Capitalism: A Love Story”? Of course, not. There’s no equity and egalitarianism in Moore’s camp. Like Terry Lawson said, his blue collar act is a fraud.

Moore also doesn’t tell us what incentive anyone has to sweat and toil and risk to create a going concern, if it then must be taken over by the masses who did nothing to make it a success in the first place. Moore insist on “fairness in the workplace,” but how fair is it for one person to put in his heart and soul and risk everything, and then be forced to give it away to his employees when the risk turns into a successful product and/or company? He merely tells us that everyone should be like Jonas Salk who gave away his polio vaccine. But has Moore ever given away his movies and said, hey, Hollywood, don’t pay me? PUH-LEEZE. Reports say the guy’s worth over $50 million.

Moore shows a bunch of mansions of CEOs of companies and is upset by them. But two properties in the movie are missing: Moore’s mansion in Torch Lake in Michigan and his $1.2 million apartment in New York. CEOs aren’t allowed to live well. Only a fat film guy from Flint is.

During one of my encounters with Michael Moore, I asked him why he criticizes corporate welfare (and I agree somewhat with that criticism), yet wears pro sports teams’ T-shirts and hats. He said, “Well, I’m a hypocrite. I admit it. I’m not 100% consistent.”

Uh, yeah. Not even close. But he is right about the first part. “Capitalism: A Love Story” isn’t about capitalism. It’s about Michael Moore’s love affair with hypocrisy.

Capitalism is just the prostitute this pimp throws under the bus.

To Moore’s credit, during a scene on Wall Street, Moore includes a great response when he asks people on the street for advice. One man tells him:

Yeah, don’t make any more movies.

Great advice. But the biggest capitalist of them all, Michael Moore, won’t take it. He’s got a capitalist anti-capitalist lifestyle–and a love affair with his lies–to support.

Debbie, its a good review but I made an exception since I said before I thought Moore doesn’t need publicity – good or bad. I haven’t seen his fakumentaries since “Roger and Me.” There’s nothing honest about him as a filmmaker or social critic.

Here’s a love story for ya – Michael Moore pulls his chair up to the food bar at Golden Corral at about 5pm and has to be forcibly ejected from the establishment after it closes for the night, as he screams “I did not get my fair share!” Kinda like the Simpson’s episode when Homer is thrown out of an all you can eat seafood place.

Haha, spot on Deb, Moore’s movies are nothing but propaganda, I cannot believe how many people fall for his bull. I‘ve only seen one of his movies, the first, at the behest of some friends of mine, and I could not believe it was called a documentary. Some of my wife’s co-workers invited us to their house for a viewing of “Fahrenheit 9/11” to supposedly prove what a horrible President Bush was, lefties galore, my wife thought I would make a scene, but I was cool, they asked if my son wanted to enlist if I would let him and I told them that if that time came my son would be an adult and could make his own decision (he was like 10 at the time), they all looked at me incredulously, couldn’t believe I still supported Bush and the war in Iraq, but all I could do was laugh at these knuckle heads that believed Michael Moore as gospel. This movie does look like the worst so far.

Liberal Capitalists: JELAOUS lazy slobs who earn way too much but think they deserve more…yeah, I know a few liberals and can’t beleive how much they buy into this hypocrite’s bull. Even animals know better than to crap their own bed.
…and what do you think of lady hObama who “sacrificed” so much to bring the Olympics to Chicago? Yeah I guess flying around in luxury Jets, shopping and being Queen of the world does take it’s toll…poor baby 🙁 sniff…
Sorry Mrs. BO, but having more than your fair share and than whining about it?…Seriously, I’d rather see you gloat.

After fahrenheit 911 I thought that this man should’ve been considered an enemy of the state, and tried for treason. Everything he’s said and done since then has convinced me he’s mentally ill and should still be tried for treason. I’d like to see Marcus Luttrell tune him up.

BUT why do NFL team owners believe in no limit capitalism for themselves BUT WON’T ALLOW their 53 player team earn more than $127 million or about $2.3 million average per player. Why can owners be capitalists BUT their players must be restrained by socialist/communist policies?

Sorta like a judge working for pay received by socialist taxation supplying clients for capitalist prisons. Moore is right about some things but he too is a capitalist and a huge hypocrite.

Just like his buddy Bill Maher, who last week had Eliot Spitzer on his Real time show. Spitzer son of a near-billionaire claimed he believed people not of the money class are representing the people. Then went on to say its all the Republicans fault who lost their sense of morality with their policies over the last 8 years. Spitzer said they lost their morality! Moore criticizes capitalists!

Like Moore, Eliot Spitzer’s a self righteous lying piece’o’crap hyppocrite. I’m not at all surprised to see him preaching morality. It doesn’t say much for the mentality of a majority New York state’s population that elected him either. I’ll bet if he ran for office here again he’d win.

BUT why do NFL team owners believe in no limit capitalism for themselves BUT WON’T ALLOW their 53 player team earn more than $127 million or about $2.3 million average per player. Why can owners be capitalists BUT their players must be restrained by socialist/communist policies?

You’ve never heard of the salary cap have you? Without the cap, the NFL would lose on the order of 6 teams overnight and perhaps 10 would remain competitive. The rest would teeter on year to year bankruptcy unable to afford a missing piece for a competitive team. The players are free to make endorsement deals with whomever will contract them.

I think the point was not that the ice cream capitalism was unfair —- it was that our capitalism has been abstracted away from ice cream alltogether. Instead of it being about who makes the best ice cream, it’s about who is making side bets about the ice cream multiple abstractions away, and when they fail, how they invoke a special corporate socialism to bail themselves out of our money.

Moore explains how when we were in the business of making things for people, for the good of society, there didn’t seem to be a problem. When we start hoarding and moving into the abstract (derivatives, mortgage schemes, shady legislation) it becomes evil.

And Debbie, I don’t know what you’re intentions are, but clearly, I think if you have an idea in your brain, please publish it onto a documentary. And I would love to watch it and comment on it. Because you really just piss me off when you talk like this.

Michael Moore has a big mansion and nice cars and nice hats? Okay, why shouldn’t he? He’s making good money, so he will invest in his own self. He has earned it!

The corporate junkies, or the corporate owners, on the other hand, are wrongfully using people’s money. And that’s what Michael Moore is arguing. Seriously, I think you should eat some “Common sense” pills.

The bail-out money that banks received were isolated and used towards CEO bonuses! What kind of cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch does that! Yeah, the corporate junkies! — That’s the answer.

What’s most repulsive about Moore, is that,in spite of ALL of the mountains of facts exposing him as a total hypocrite/double-talker and bald-faced,Pathological LIAR he is,about himself and his life,he has not been destroyed or humilated,so that he has to go away forever,with his tail between his thunder thighs.

And in spite of the equally mountainous-sized evidence that prove every single one of his documentaries wrong – or half-right at best – they make enough money at the BO for the devil to be successful, so the double-talker can keep making more of them.

The traitor is similar to Jane Fonda,Steven Spielberg,Oliver Stone,etc;they’re Teflon,nothing sticks to them,when their garbage should have been totally ignored and tanked at the BO all these years.

I have been reading, thinking, talking and worrying. Reading your review and your excellent blog in general, I have finally come to a fairly simple conclusion. After years of misusing the word, I finally accept it applies. The left is occupied by crazy people who think Castro is a good guy, Fat-Boy Moore a genius, Obummer an orator and Bill Clinton is attractive. They are all nuts, crazy, insane. We who aren’t really do need to get going or Kakaesque — our current all purpose adjective — will become the permanent correct answer to every question. God job Deb!

Wow, what a great line! You are great. I hope a few people will read your review before they head out to give that Hypocrite/Marxist/Capitalist more money for his granite toilets. What a windbag he is.

I’d be happy to take up a collection to buy Michael Moore a one-way ticket to the social paradise of Cuba, but whawt guarantee is there he won’t try to float back to America a few weeks later on a makeshift raft?

This guy’s such a tool Bob Vila could use him to completely renovate every home in Detroit.

No need to exaggerate Moore’s expensive home on Torch Lake. It’s worth about $650,000. With 150′ of lake frontage, based on other properties for sale on Torch Lake, it’s probably about 3000 sq ft. Comfortable but not a mansion.

Mikey likes to make it seem like he’s living in cabin in the woods like Hemmingway. He almost never says he lives on Torch Lake, one of the most desirable places to live in Michigan. He calls Traverse City his adopted hometown, or says that he lives in Bellaire.

Another liberal that beat up Michael Moore pretty good was that old scribe from the Free Press, Bob Talbert. He wrote a pretty good article about Michael Moore’s dishonest columns in the Village Voice. It would be great Deb if you could dig up and post that article on your website.

This guy is a slug! He is against capitalism, yet no one is capping his income. Is he sharing his wealth? Hell no!

This is what is wrong with the Obama administration…they want to cap doctors incomes, yet no mention of capping actors or pro sports people from their millions upon millions in income annually. But let’s cap the doctors’ incomes that have loans to pay back and are suffering due to high malpractice premiums and low third party reimbursement.

Oprah earned almost $300 million last year. Why doesn’t her pal BO cap her income? Isn’t she a CEO of her company? Cap her damn income BO.

I only wish someone had said…sorry Michael Moore but can only let you earn $500K this year. I bet he would be begging the GOP to get back the Senate and the WH

98ZJUSMC:
You’ve never heard of the salary cap have you? Without the cap, the NFL would lose on the order of 6 teams overnight and perhaps 10 would remain competitive. The rest would teeter on year to year bankruptcy unable to afford a missing piece for a competitive team. The players are free to make endorsement deals with whomever will contract them.

—

I repeat – By enforcing socialism on players but NOT on owners.

Owners can make all the money they want but players are limited? They could always have NO salary cap – let the free market decide what players make AND enforce socialism on the owners themselves by equal revenue sharing!

Moore gives no alternative, he is a hypocrite who has benefitted more than almost all from capitalism, but he is right about one thing – this system is very flawed and very unfair.

I can almost hear the squeals of joy from all the commies and socialists as they enter and then exit the movie theater after having seen this pure propoganda film. This movie is the exact reason Glenn Beck’s “arguing with idiots” is supposed to exist…it perfectly illustrates how people go on groupthink when it comes to social issues that they cant be bothered to research on their own (global warming, capitalism, etc)

Michael Moore is the biggest sack of hypocritical human excrement walking this earth, and i truly hope that his great God Obama is voted out of office so i can hear him cry all the way to the bank, despite the fact that his dollar might actually be worth more at the time, once a conservative GASP! capitalist President helps restore the dollar to its former glory.

Another liberal that beat up Michael Moore pretty good was that old scribe from the Free Press, Bob Talbert. He wrote a pretty good article about Michael Moore’s dishonest columns in the Village Voice. It would be great Deb if you could dig up and post that article on your website.TL: Thanks for the tip. I will look for it. DS

I’m sure moore commits acts of dishonesty here but alot of the criticisms in this piece are a result of not getting the point.

When Shawn defines capitalism, they weren’t bashing capitalism…the film pulls back a sec and just explains what capitalism is. The real argument isn’t that capitalism is bad, but that hypercapitalism unregulated inevitable leads to “robber baron” rule. You missed the point of that scene entirely. The point is that in our current system, the guy who has the best ice cream may not win at all when he should win if people more powerful than him decide his ice cream isn’t what the country needs.

the point about Bush on the commemorative plate — that wasn’t an attempt to bash Bush — it was to show that the crisis is bipartisan — that here is a victim of this situation who is, by virtue of the plate in the background, likely conservative and republican. He was showing an understanding that the issue extends beyond party politics and affects all americans.

He is arguing, in dishonest ways, a truth — that super rich corporate america buys government influence, and then they use partisan warfare to keep us distracted and fighting each other while all of us suffer.

The enemy in this movie isn’t capitalism or republicans — the enemy are those who want to create citibanks plutonomy — a government run by the rich, for the rich, and filled with people who will support the plutonomy no matter who is running for office — that way they can neutralize the democratic vote…if we’re screwed no matter who you vote for, guess what? Plutonomy wins. That this is happening is true — let’s not dismiss the truth just because the speaker is a liar.

R: Talk about not getting the point. Michael Moore ends the movie by saying capitalism is evil and must be eliminated. Which part of your claim that “the enemy in this movie isn’t capitalism” does that bolster? DS

Although times are a bit tough and money is a bit tight I’d be happy to contribute something to a fund which would provide that fat moron Moore a one way ticket to any socialist paradise he would like to live in. And hey, he can take along any of his left wing hollyweird liberal moronic friends as he likes, especially any and all who are loudly annoyingly vocal in their support for the child rapist Polanski. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I can take it to the bank that all you naysayers didn’t bother to even see the movie, not many have because of the sorry economics of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and a *war* nobody wanted or needed..welfare for corporations and get sick, die quick! No lie there Mr. President Obama, whom I salute for being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Welcome to the New World Order, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, nothing new as long as there are greedy Republicans and their greedy Wall Street buddies like good ol’ Kenny boy (Lay)! I bet Bush misses one of his best friends! “Show me the money”! – Politicians mantra (yes, greedy bastards on both sides of the isle) Welcome to Corporate Amerika people and you better learn how to speak chinese, because they own us. Learn some spanish too while you’re at it, because it was BUSH, not Obama that granted illegals amnesty! Your little bitchfest of Michael Moore is hilarious, you put him down for taking advantage of capitalism when he uses it to teach the brainwashed masses. My advice: Turn off FAUX news For a couple of hours and go see the movie and help support the capitalism that you so worship.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson

Ok debbie, call you out on this one, but doubt you will respond w/ a coherent answer.
In response to your reply about “dead peasant” insurance policies the WalMart takes out on their employees. You claim that the money is for “training” a new employee to take the position of the dead employee.
Now: Tell us how it take $1.5 million dollars to train a new WalMart employee?? You are sooo full of it! LOL!!!
Get real and maybe, just maybe, anybody but the brainwashed sheeple will ever believe a word you say. I know I don’t and never will. Your ego tells you that you have me in your pocket, when actually…maybe, possibly, you just don’t get it!
Anyone w/ a brain knows why these companies take out such policies, but you have to actually see the movie to find out!
Sheesh! Shnizel that! ROFL!!